Justice Committee on May 16th, 2019

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Correct.

[Jay Cameron]

I don't know what she experienced. I'm not her. I can't give testimony.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

You were here. You were sitting here, and I take it you were listening. Are we supposed to be concerned about sexism online?

[Jay Cameron]

Again, it depends on how you define sexism. What is sexism? Tell me what you're talking about, and I'll tell you whether I think you should be concerned about it online. Give me an example.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Just to let you know, in my riding of Willowdale, we experienced the van attack. As I'm sure you're well aware, the suspect in that case was very much influenced by incels. For those people who don't already know, incel is a group for men who feel rejected by women. Right before the actual van attack, he posted, “the Incel Rebellion has already begun.”Do you think it would have been irresponsible, in this particular instance, for Facebook, for example, to have eliminated that comment?

[Jay Cameron]

Do I think it would be irresponsible for Facebook to eliminate—

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Do you think anything should be done, as far as you're concerned? We see all these instances, and from your perspective, should governments be concerned?

[Jay Cameron]

Yes, I think that governments are prosecuting offences under sections 318 and 319 of the Criminal Code, for example. You need permission from the Attorney General to prosecute that offence. Obviously, that's something serious, and when there is a breach of the Criminal Code, I think it should be prosecuted. I support that.

My point, sir, is that not all the people who are charged with the human rights offence or are the subject of a human rights complaint are lunatics plotting a van attack against women, right? There are lots of common people who are innocent.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

I think we all understand that.

[Jay Cameron]

I think it's important to clarify it, because I'm not sure that we do all understand it.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

All I've asked is whether there is a public interest for governments to be concerned about these types of things. You expressed to us that gossip can spread on the net in no time, and it spreads wide. Hatred, you would agree, actually spreads as well.

[Jay Cameron]

Sure, communication spreads. That's the same for a speech that infringes the Criminal Code as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Thanks very much.

Ms. Ramsey.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

I'd like to start by saying that we're talking about people's lives. We heard a very personal story from a witness in the previous panel that was backed up by a decision at the Human Rights Tribunal in favour of her and her experience.

There is a very important line around freedom of speech and making sure it's protected fiercely in our country, and at the same time preventing...not just online hate speech. Yesterday we heard from some Facebook folks. The chair and the vice-chair and I participated in a panel where we heard from Facebook about hate and what happens with the building of online hate and how it's really a systemic issue that ultimately results in hate speech on the Internet. We talked about Facebook and Twitter. We mentioned those things here. There are so many applications, so many gaming chat rooms, so many corners of the Internet that we haven't been able to have proper conversations about here, because we've focused on the larger web giants. This is systemic throughout the entire Internet.

The challenge before us is very difficult—having conversations about reporting; having conversations about lived experience, which we heard previously; about the importance of protecting Canadians and making sure they feel safe in our country. It is a very difficult task ahead of us to take all these things and place them ultimately into a report that will reflect everything we've heard here.

In the previous panel, we heard about the differences between the way online content and physical publications are treated in our country.

Ms. Zwibel, how do we account for the differences in treatment of what you're able to put in print and what you're able to put online in our country, and how do we reconcile those two? How do we create something that is equal across those platforms?

[Cara Zwibel]

Unfortunately, I didn't hear the panel before, so I'm not sure of the differences that were discussed.

At a very practical level, we have to recognize that the online space is not at all like the real world, where there are geographic boundaries that Canada can police and patrol. The online world doesn't have those kinds of boundaries. Let's for now confine ourselves to what would constitute criminal hate speech under the Criminal Code. It's much more difficult for the Canadian government to deal with that online. Even that kind of content, if it originates outside of the country online, is going to be very difficult for a Canadian court to do anything about.

I don't think it's a problem of political will or enforcement necessarily. It's just the reality of the infrastructure that exists that allows both the good and the bad that comes from democratizing freedom-of-expression media. It used to be that only people who could afford to establish a printing press could have a megaphone. Today everyone has a megaphone, and there are obviously good and bad aspects of that reality. I think that's what accounts for that difference, and I'm not sure it's a problem the law can really address. We wouldn't want a court in Russia deciding what Canadians can access on the Internet. By the same token, Canadian courts can't decide what the world can access. We shouldn't be allowing our courts to make orders that would remove content from the Internet worldwide.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

It's certainly a global issue, and that's something that was part of our panel discussion yesterday as well.

There is a report by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage titled “Taking Action Against Systemic Racism and Religious Discrimination Including Islamophobia”. It was an all-party report that was brought to the House of Commons.

One of the recommendations they had was to establish uniform pan-Canadian guidelines and standards for the collection and handling of hate crime data and hate incident data, including efforts to standardize the definition and the interpretation by law enforcement of “hate crimes”.

What are your thoughts on that particular recommendation?

[Cara Zwibel]

I do think there's a data problem; I think we don't have full information about what exists.

At the very root, to go back to something Mr. Cameron said at the outset in his comments, we need to understand what we mean when we talk about a hate crime or a hate incident. Typically I think of a hate crime as a criminal act that's motivated by hatred, but it can be quite difficult to establish in a court of law the motivations of the perpetrator of a crime. It's more obvious in cases where they spray a swastika or they assault someone wearing a hijab. However, there are other cases that will target particular individuals because of their race or religion or gender, and it will not be obvious. I think there's a definitional problem that we need to address.

I also think we shouldn't conflate hate crimes and hate incidents. An incident might be someone shouting a racial slur to a stranger in a grocery store. That's something we might want to know about, but it's not something that the criminal law should be dealing with. I think we need to address that definitional question and figure out how to gather the data.

I know that some of the witnesses you've heard from have questioned whether government is in the best position to gather that data, and I'm not sure of the answer to that question. There are some people who feel that, in certain communities, incidents will not be reported if the only place to report them is to police. In some cases, we have faith groups or other groups that are suited to doing that.

I think there probably needs to be a collaborative approach on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Mr. Fraser.

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Thank you to the witnesses for joining us today.

I'll be splitting my time with Mr. Erskine-Smith.

Mr. Cameron, I would like to pick up on a couple of comments you made in your presentation.

I take what you're saying about paragraph 2(b) of the charter. Freedom of expression is a fundamental freedom. Section 2 also includes other fundamental freedoms, such as religion and association. Of course, all the rights in the Charter of Rights are read together, and it's oftentimes a balancing of those fundamental freedoms, which can come into conflict. They have to be balanced.

I take issue with the fact that you think we should look at paragraph 2(b) first and that that's the most important and paramount consideration of all the rights. I disagree with that. Also, section 1 of the charter makes it very clear that all of the rights, including the fundamental freedoms, are subject to reasonable limits. The court has ruled on that, and I think it's misleading to say that paragraph 2(b) is the paramount consideration.

Another comment that you made was in your third recommendation, saying that any fine for anything involving hate speech online or whatever, should be capped at the Criminal Code fine for impaired driving, which is $1,000. That's the minimum fine, first of all, and second of all, you can go to jail for impaired driving. It is a serious offence, but of course it depends on all of the circumstances.

Third, you mentioned that the BC Human Rights Tribunal should, in some fashion or another, be promoting your legal services and giving you a platform in order to take on clients. That would help you get the word out there about your organization and what you stand for. I don't think it's the BC Human Rights Tribunal's role, at all, to be promoting any legal services over others.

I want to move, though, to something you said, which was that there's this sentiment out there that disagreeing with someone's point of view is considered hate. You went through a list of them and said “You disagree with that. That's hate.” I don't think that's true. I think the essential point here is that spreading misinformation angers people and riles people up online, and spreading that disinformation turns members of a community against one another. That's the fundamental problem we're seeing with things online that are not true, and they're being propagated by people with insincere motives, and motives that are outside the bounds of civil society, I would suggest.

What I would like to ask you, sir, is, when we see the Toronto van attack or what happened in Christchurch or the Quebec City mosque shooting, does it trouble you that those terrible individuals have been inspired by provocative and hateful content on social media platforms?

[Jay Cameron]

Does it trouble me that they were inspired by social media?

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Does it trouble you that they were inspired by hateful content on social media platforms?

[Jay Cameron]

I don't presume to know what inspired these people. I'm not them; I don't know what their childhood was like or what they were subjected to.

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

It's been widely reported that hateful content on social media platforms was at least partially responsible for the ideologies they hold. Does that trouble you?

[Jay Cameron]

Any time somebody commits a heinous act against people, it troubles me. I think any time they're motivated to do that, in part or in whole, by something somebody said, it is troublesome. Crimes happen every single day and people are influenced by what other people across the country say. That's troublesome.

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

We'll leave it there.

I'll turn my time to Mr. Erskine-Smith.